Split a Legacy Publication into Site Publication and Blueprint

A new Widget Framework project structure was introduced in version 3.6 in order to cleanly separate content (site publications) from site design (blueprints). Prior to this, both templates and content were held together in a single "all-in-one" publication. This legacy publication structure is still supported, but you may wish to convert your legacy publications to the new structure in order to simplify future maintenance.

If your publication includes any custom widgets, then before you can split the publication, you first need to restructure your custom widget Maven projects. Each project must be modified to specify widget-framework-widgets as its parent project. This ensures that when the project is built it will generate three artifacts instead of one: one artifact containing the design-related aspects of the widget, for use in blueprints, one containing the editorial aspects of the widget for use in site publications, and one containing everything for use in legacy publications. For full details, see Widget Packaging.

Once you have restructured any custom widgets, to split a legacy publication you need to do the following:

1. Export the legacy publication's config section and all its subsections (see Export Pubication Content). Export all content items from the section tree, and export section pages along with the sections.

2. Apply the XSL transformation supplied in Converting Section Collection Fields to the exported XML files. This transformation is needed to ensure that section collection fields in some widget types (Search Component and Heading widgets, for example) are converted properly.

3. Set up a new Maven project for the blueprint. The project must include dependencies on:

   • Any layout-related custom content types or layout-group definitions used in the original legacy publication

   • widget-framework-blueprint and widget-pack-blueprint (see Setting up a Blueprint Publication)

   • If your publication includes any custom widgets, the widgets' blueprint-specific dependencies (see Using Custom Widgets in Blueprints)

4. Build the new project.

5. Create a new publication using escenic-admin (see New Publications. Make sure that you set Publication type to configuration.

6. Import the content you exported in step 1 to the new blueprint publication (see Import Content.

7. Convert your legacy publication's Maven project to a site publication project. This involves:

   • Removing dependencies on the layout-related custom content-types and layout-group definitions you copied to the blueprint project. The site project should only retain dependencies on editorial level custom content types and layout-group definitions.

   • Removing the dependency on wf-demo-resources, which is no longer required.

   • Replacing the existing Widget Framework dependencies with dependencies on widget-framework-site and widget-pack-site (see Setting up a Site Publication).

   • If your publication includes any custom widgets, replacing the existing custom widget dependencies with site publication dependencies (see Using Custom Widgets in Site Publications)

8. Build and deploy the modified project.

9. Update the publication resources of your legacy publication, thereby converting it into a new-style site publication (see Update Resources).

10. Set up the connection between the new site publication and its blueprint (see Set Publication Blueprint).